Whenever I talk to seniors in high school about college, they’re so excited to be done with senior year and begin college, but I usually tell them something along the lines of, “Do your best to enjoy your final months at home where laundry and food is free. Where you maybe don’t have to work, because while college is very fun, it is also truly difficult in different ways.” I won’t dispute that college is better than high school, but everything that you go through in college is for the first time and usually on you’re own.

Something that I’ve found through my weeks at SPU is that you need to find ways to fully enjoy the little things, like the lack of a line at the omelet bar at breakfast or your floor-mates leaving you a sweet note on your door. My favorite ‘little thing’ that I seek out every morning is the sunrise. I’m a morning person and my dorm room faces the Cascade Mountains, so almost every morning my body clock wakes me up around the time that the sky is burning with a beautiful shade of orange, I sit up in my bed for a moment, have gratitude, thank God for placing me where I am, then go back to bed for the thirty or so minutes I have left till my alarm.

College is a time where you need to make conscious decisions to be happy, to seek out the beautiful things in your life. I think this is so imperative to enjoy your college experience because college can be an overwhelming time – emotionally and physically, but these years are suppose to be the most memorable and fun years of your life before you have adult obligations like a 9-5 and a mortgage. Enjoy your time the best you can, however you can.

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Emma Eekhoff is an 18-year-old that would rather be networking for business than at a party with her high school friends. She's not afraid to share my stance on something, whether it is an art form like music or recent events in the world. She's been writing in a journalist setting for only a few years, through her high school’s online newspaper, The Growl Online or for a music blog. She loves to connect and network with new people in the worlds of business and music, travel to new places and eat new interesting foods.